Irish Language
Dail Éireann — 2025-09-23
============================================================

Aisling Dempsey (FF), Meath West

I thank the Minister for her comments and for recognising the importance of naíonraí in our communities. As a TD for Meath, which has two of the only Gaeltacht areas in Leinster, namely Ráth Chairn and Baile Ghib, the importance of the Irish language and culture is not lost on me. We have some quality settings in the Gaeltacht area, for example, in Navan. At present, thankfully, we are seeing the Irish language under the spotlight like we have not for a while. The importance of speaking the language and being proud of it is coming to the fore. Naíonraí provide the best start for children who we want to be at least bilingual. Full immersion has significant and long-lasting benefits for our children. We all understand the pressures on our early education settings, including attracting and retaining staff. It is my belief that those who are fluent Irish speakers should be given extra incentives to work in early education.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-09-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-09-23